Fantastic Plastic!

Ok. Some of you may be thinking 'Oh no! Not more vinyl! When will he change the record?!'. But I tell you, spray painted vinyl are a joy to paint on! I got right into doing a load more of them, to give as presents to my closest friends.

They're a diverse group of people, so each vinyl Infection is personal to them. Hanna loves toadstools and is bright and colourful; Suzie has a growing collection of owl memorabilia, but is quite particular about what she likes. Then there's more of the Herbal Sessions boys. These are the people I'm going to know for the rest of my life, they're like family. So spending a little time on something that they especially will like, is the least I can do! 

Sic in the face: An oldie, but a goodie!

This is a self portrait I did back in the second year of my degree.  I was ill at the time and was having a mental block, unsure of what I was doing.  My tutor's advice was to incorporate how I was feeling into the image and told me to look at scientific drawings of the head.  Once I'd got my idea and began drawing it, I got well into it and I started feeling better! (The ol' 'Reverse Infection'! Ha ha! Look at the nose, throat and ear cavities, all Infected with fine liner mucus!).  The original was hand drawn (as always!) A3 size, using a fine liner pen. I later added the red using Photoshop.

Black on yellow triptych

Before I painted the last lot of vinyls in yellow and black, I did this triptych.  It started out as a set of three, simply designed wooden wall hangings bought from Ikea, that I then sprayed with 'Golden Yellow' Montana Gold spray paint and worked on with black Posca paint pens.

 Like most of the work I produce, this piece was for no one in particular, I just had to 'get it out of my system'!  A big part of the nature of Infected By Design, is that if I don't create these pieces in a clinical way, no lines out of place, allowing the image to just come out freely with no initial idea in my head, then I might go back to how I was when i was younger; washing my hands after opening every door handle I touched, lining shoes up before I can go to sleep, or counting everything around me.
This piece currently hangs in the Inkstitute Tattoo Parlour in Cheadle, Manchester . check out their Facebook page here  http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Inkstitute/187516714611002

More Vinyl Infections

After the last lot of vinyls I painted sold like hot cakes on the stall at The Beatherder festival, I painted some more to try and sell at Bomfest, a smaller, but equally as mighty festival held in Barnsley a week or so later.

This time, there wasn't the use of a stall to sell them on and I never managed to . But having had such an awesome weekend in the company of great people and fully appreciative of the good vibes, I decided to give something back and made gifts of the vinyls, distributing them amongst members of The Future League, some of the greatest people you could ever hope to meet.

The black on yellow one was my favourite and after Bomfest, still feeling the power from the experience, I decided to paint 3 more for some of my closest friends, Cal, AKA 'Calcutter', Clive, AKA 'Greedy Boy' and Gaz, AKA 'Lost Property, all resident dj's with the mighty Herbal Sessions Soundsytem crew. (Website temporarilly unavailable, but check them out here
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000178309308

Follow the 'Red 'N' Black' road

I don't know wether it's an aesthetics thing, because red and black look so good together, or wether I really believe that all the canvases I've painted in these colours just happen to be my favourites, because I also believe them to be some of my best Infections.  It all started with 'Big Red' as I've come to call it.  Measuring over 7 feet in length and just short of 3 feet deep, 'Big Red' was painted a few years ago for the soul purpose of hanging up in my own front room and is still there now!

The next couple I did were this one I painted for Clive, one of my best friends, as a birthday present and this one that I was commissioned to paint by Dj and music promoter, Electrotrip to hang in the club. 

Interestingly, when he gave me the canvas to paint (which I did as a live art piece in the club during one of his music nights), he hadn't noticed that Elijah, his little boy had scribbled on it, but rather than give it a base coat first and cover them, I used the lines Elijah had left for me to create the figure in the painting that represents a dj. 

This last piece is one I finished just before Christmas and was commissioned by my good friend Gaz, to give to his fiance Rachel as a gift.  The 3 smaller canvases were all roughly A3 size and were done using Posca paint pens, my weapon of choice! 

check them out for yourselves here http://www.unisuperpens.co.uk/uni-super-ink-range/posca.aspx

Merry Crossmas!

This is a piece I did for Cross-a very good friend of mine- as a Christmas present. It's hand drawn with a fine liner pen, scanned in, then live traced and coloured in Illustrator.

The lego elements are all my own aswell, but I borrowed them from another project I'd done previously, which you can see here-http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=284071691639467&set=pu.184850511561586&type=1&theater

Spreading the Infection: Global outbreak!

It's official: I've gone global with this big canvas! Commissioned by a young man in Sydney Australia, the brief was to produce a painting of a London scene with a futuristic, Infected twist. I had a joiner friend build me the frame, which is just short of 5 feet long and 3 feet deep and I stretched the canvas myself. I used Posca pens to paint it.

Vinyl Revival

Last summer I took part in an event called 'Al Fresco', presented by YoMoFo. A one day mini festival with laid back beats, kids activities and arts and crafts stalls, including one  of my own, selling canvases, skateboards and some clothing bearing my own designs. Aswell as this, the promoter had given me a load of old 12 inch vinyl, all sprayed silver, to doodle on and give to the kids whilst I manned the stall. What started out as a couple of kids watching me scribble on these unwanted records, soon turned into a long que of children, all taking a blank vinyl off the pile and joining the line! It got a bit out of hand and there were some grumpy faces when I had to call it a day! Id spent most of the afternoon doodling on the discs and hardly sold a thing of my own!

   It wasn't a total loss however, I got paid for 3 I did later on when it quietened down and little Louis, who'd wanted a Godzilla vinyl all day and had settled for a quick doodled version, got a birthday treat a few weeks later as his mum commissioned me to paint one with a little more to it!

  Little Sophie Ella's parents also got me to paint one for her bedroom door. After this, I went into overdrive and just painted another 5, which I later sold on a stall at the Beatherder festival. And it didn't stop there.....